Show egg eating snake some tree snakes feed on eggs but certain other serpents are BO be wonderfully wonder full y modified for such food that they may well be named the egg eaters par excellence the mouths of these animals are not bordered by any fleshy lippand lips lip sand and therefore if a snake were to crack an art egg in its mouth most of its contents would escape and be last lot accordingly la in these serpents tho the teeth are reduced to a is minute size that the egg when seized may not be injured by them but it must bo be cracked somewhere and so strange to hay say the teeth which are practically absent from the creatures creature 8 mouth are transferred to the interior of ita its gullet if such a snakes mouth be opened and the finger introduced nothing much will be felt till it passes down the throat there A series of teeth will be felt and these consist of a number of bony aromi dences which project downward into the tile gullet from the under surface of the backbone where they so project into the gullet each process is capped with tooth pub sub stance and acts as a it true tooth the snake swallows the egg which is uninjured aured dand and then when it Is safely down within the gullet it squeezes it against these curious teeth of its backbone and breaks it thus the whole of the eggs nutritious contents aro are secured be and tho the waste which would otherwise inevitably take place Is avoided three species of this kind are found in central and southern africa and the name of egg eater has been appropriately bestowed on them by the cape colonists quarterly review |